Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Bill Dana, 1924-2017, R.I.P.

Comedian, writer, and screenwriter Bill Dana (born William Szathmary), has died at the age of ninety-two.

Once again, I seem to have the Kiss of Death. I talk or think about a person whom I haven't thought about in quite a while, and soon learn that he or she has died, or then discover that he or she has recently died.

At my flea market stand, one of the items I have for sale is the album pictured below, José Jimenez in Orbit (Bill Dana on Earth). Just last Sunday, my display of this LP prompted not one, but two conversations about Bill Dana. One was with a gentleman who assumed that Mr. Dana was dead, but I promptly corrected him, informing him that the comedian, now ninety-two, was still alive. And as far as I knew, I was right; the news outlets had yet to report that Bill Dana had died on Thursday, the 15th.

Starting in 1959 and continuing throughout the 1960s, Dana appeared as José Jimenez, a somewhat simple-minded Bolivian (or Mexican, as has often been stated) character who spoke broken English and was an astronaut at one point in his fictional history. The character was warmly embraced by the real U.S. Mercury astronauts (not to mention a very young Silver Fox). Dana portrayed Jimenez until 1970, when it was decided that the character was too stereotypical, this in spite of the fact that "José" was actually relatively well-accepted by Latinos (well, depending on whose version you believe).

Early in his entertainment career, Dana had written routines for stand-up comic Don Adams. When Dana got his own show in the mid-1960s, Dana played José Jimenez as a bellhop. Adams was hired to play a hotel detective named Byron Glick. After The Bill Dana Show was cancelled, Adams took Glick's persona with him to play Maxwell Smart on Get Smart. (Bill Dana's brother Irving Szathmary wrote the Get Smart theme, yet another Don Adams connection.) Dana also co-wrote Don Adams' 1980's Get Smart movie, The Nude Bomb... which was just that, a "bomb."

Among many other credits in his long career, Dana wrote "Sammy's Visit," the well-known and incredibly popular episode of All in the Family which featured Sammy Davis, Jr. In the 1980s, Dana appeared as the father to Howie Mandel's character of Dr. Wayne Fiscus on St. Elsewhere. (Odd that I found out about Mr. Dana's passing on the same day that I heard about the death of Stephen Furst, who appeared on St. Elsewhere as a regular.) Dana later played Estelle Getty's brother on The Golden Girls.

With Danny Thomas.

With Ed Sullivan.

In a cameo appearance as José Jimenez on Batman.

Sorry I couldn't find a shot that actually included Batman!

With Steve Allen.

With buddy Don Adams on The Bill Dana Show.

As Bernardo in Walt Disney Television's Zorro and Son,

a comical sequel to their 1950s Zorro series, which premiered

in 1983. Dana is flanked by Paul Regina and Henry Darrow.

With Adams, Jonathan Harris (later of Lost in Space), and Maggie Peterson.

With "son" Howie Mandel on St. Elsewhere.

With Estelle Getty on The Golden Girls.

Now, I have to wonder, who's next? Celebrities who've been running through my mind one way or another lately are Carl Reiner (who's ninety-five), Norman Lear (who's ninety-four), and yet another St. Elsewhere alumnus, Norman Lloyd (who's 102)! Watch this space.

I saw him on the Danny Thomas show reruns not long ago! I don't think it is so much that you are a jinx, but more that you happen to be thinking of older celebrities. Now, if you started thinking for twenty & thirty year old celebs, and they started passing away, I'd say you were on to something.Visit me @ Life & Faith in Caneyhead. 😉

That's very true. Most of the celebrities -- actors, musicians, writers, etc. -- whom I'm fond of are older ones, whether I became a fan of theirs relatively recently or grew up "with" them. For example, I recently watched my DVD set of both seasons of Disney's Zorro show from the late fifties. It makes sense that many of the actors who were adults in the late 1950s are either dead or quite old. Not really much of a surprise when someone that age passes.

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I Was Chosen BLOG OF THE MONTH ~ November 2011

I Won "The Goddess Award!"

Unfortunately, the "Everyday Goddess" site is no longer available, but here is the post that won the award for me!

What to Expect from This Blog, and from Me:

The Lair of the Silver Fox will contain anything I want it to contain. Sometimes I'll just ramble about my varied interests. Other times, if and when my muse cooperates, I may present you with stories, both fictional and non-fictional. (And just because something is supposedly "true," it doesn't mean that it's 100% true! You've been warned!) Some will be serialized in chapter form, while others will be one-part, stand-alone stories. Occasionally, there will be personal anecdotes, able to be called "stories" in a very loose sense. I may discuss unfinished or unpublished projects. Now and then, there will be articles containing opinions, or information, or anything else I want them to contain, and that includes occasional, somewhat feisty David'Z RantZ entries, which will be prominently labeled as such. I also have an occasional feature called Comical Wednesday! I am prone to writing tribute posts when prominent (or obscure) celebrities die. There might even be poems or songs. I will post items that have been published elsewhere, operating under the assumption that if you haven't seen it here, you haven't seen it at all.

The Lair of the Silver Fox will not always be what you expect it to be, or even -- sometimes -- what you want to see. But then again, if it were, it'd be your blog, and not mine, right?